Magnolia in the early morning of the Harvest Festival was absolutely packed, attracting tourists from all over the region and making the streets as lively and chaotic as New Year's Day.
And what everyone was most fired up about, without any competition, was the upcoming Fairy Tail Beauty Contest.
This was the main reason countless perverts had traveled thousands of miles to get here most of them were hardcore fans of Mira and Dark Magician Girl from the weekly magic magazine, and they had been marking this date on their calendars for weeks.
Fairy Tail Guild, third-floor terrace.
Chase and Makarov stood side by side at the railing, looking down at the surging crowd below.
"Guild Master, I saw Freed and the other two come back a couple of days ago, and Laxus has been acting strange lately." Chase leaned against the railing with both hands, his voice low and serious. "I just have a feeling that guy is about to make a big move."
Makarov was eighty-eight years old and had always had heart problems. In the civil war that Chase knew was coming, Laxus was going to push him to the point of critical illness. And the things Chase was about to do during that civil war were, putting it kindly, a bit reckless. Better to give the old man a heads-up now before things got moving.
"The Thunder God Tribe, huh..." Makarov's expression was heavy and complicated. "And of course they'd choose a sensitive time like the Harvest Festival, when everyone is back and the whole city is watching."
He had already heard everything from Mira. Laxus attacking Levy. Gajeel getting seriously injured. At the time he had felt the unease settle deep into his chest, but as a grandfather he had still pushed against the worst interpretation of it, still told himself it hadn't gone that far yet.
Chase's words made that much harder to hold onto.
"You're not wrong." Makarov's voice came out tired. "That scoundrel Laxus, if he really goes and hurts his comrades again, I'll have no choice but to expel him from the guild."
His fist clenched slowly at his side, almost without him noticing.
"Just like Ivan..."
The moment his son's name came up, something shifted in Makarov's face. The easygoing, round-cheeked expression he wore through most of his life gave way to something older and quieter and much heavier. What father, what grandfather, could make that kind of decision without it costing him something real?
"If Laxus really does intend to cause trouble during the festival, Guild Master, I'm asking you to stay calm and leave the handling of it to me," Chase said.
Makarov turned to look at him, frowning slightly.
"Chase... do you know something specific?"
"Just a hunch. Accepting a former enemy into the guild has been all over the rumors in the surrounding towns lately. You know Laxus's temper better than anyone. Sitting quietly while people talk about the guild's direction isn't something he does well."
Makarov nodded slowly, heavily, and let out a long sigh.
"Laxus... he still hasn't managed to step out of my shadow. Everything he does comes back to that."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked up at Chase, and despite everything sitting on his face, he managed a small smile. It was a bit forced, and Chase could see the effort behind it clearly, but it was real.
His own son had run away. His grandson was standing at the edge of something that couldn't easily be walked back. Even the old man couldn't just laugh that off.
"Whatever happens, go ahead and do what needs to be done. I trust every one of your judgments."
He paused, then added with a tone that was trying its best to be light, "Consider it a special privilege for a guild master candidate, you know~"
"I appreciate the trust, old man. The guild master candidate part though, let's shelve that for now," Chase replied smoothly.
"You brat!" Makarov's expression snapped back to life instantly. He jumped up and flicked Chase hard on the forehead. "What do you mean 'old man'?! I have a title in this guild! Use it!"
"Yes, yes, yes. It would honestly be best if you stayed guild master for the rest of your natural life."
"Oh oh oh oh!!"
A wave of cheering erupted from the hall downstairs, rolling up through the whole building.
"Never mind all that for now, the Miss Fairy Beauty Contest must be starting!" Leaving those words behind, Makarov, who had been carrying the full weight of a grandfather's worry just thirty seconds ago, spun on his heel and shot downstairs at a speed that had no business coming from an eighty-eight-year-old man.
Chase watched the spot where he had been standing.
"This old pervert..."
He shook his head and followed him down.
By the time Chase arrived at the venue, the hall was absolutely stuffed. Guild members, Magnolia locals, and visitors who had made the trip from other towns and cities all crammed in together, shoulder to shoulder, buzzing with anticipation.
It is worth noting that the male to female ratio in the crowd was, to put it generously, completely ridiculous.
"Hello everyone, I am Max, your host for today's Miss Fairy Beauty Contest!"
Max had the stage and the microphone and was clearly in his element. He worked both with the confident ease of someone who had been looking forward to this all year.
"Oh? We have guests who traveled all the way from the Land of the Dead to be here today? Please remember to head back to the cemetery once the contest wraps up~"
A ripple of laughter went through the crowd. Chase, standing toward the back, leaned slightly toward the "it's a joke" interpretation, though in a world where the line between the living and the dead had produced genuinely strange situations more than once, he held onto a small sliver of doubt.
"Are you all ready, ladies and gentlemen?! Our lovely Fairies are about to give you a show you will not forget! I hereby declare the Miss Fairy Selection Contest officially open!!"
"Oh oh oh oh!!!"
The male half of the audience went absolutely feral. The sound hit the ceiling and came back down.
Max let it peak, riding the energy for a few seconds, then raised his voice over it.
"First to appear is contestant number one! The exotic card mage with the figure that launched a thousand fan letters — Cana Alberona!"
The curtain parted.
Cana stepped out with the completely unbothered confidence of someone who had already decided how this was going to go. Cards swirled around her body in a smooth arc, and when they pulled away she was standing in a swimsuit that made a significant portion of the front row momentarily forget how to form thoughts. Red heart shapes were practically visible in several pairs of eyes.
"Sorry boys, but that prize money is already mine~" Cana grinned.
"A swimsuit! How completely shameless!" Lucy's scandalized voice floated out from the wings of the stage, where she had positioned herself behind the curtain to scout the competition before her own turn. She sounded like someone rapidly reassessing their strategic choices.
The contestants kept coming as Max introduced them one by one.
Contestant number two, Juvia, also in a swimsuit. Her appearance and figure needed no commentary. The continuous passionate cries of "Gray-sama!" directed at the audience rather than any actual Gray were not doing her score any favors, but she seemed entirely at peace with her priorities.
Number three, Mira, and the moment she stepped out the audience surged forward as one. The reaction was exactly what you would expect when Mira appears anywhere. And then she used her transformation magic.
She kept her own body, which was already an unfair advantage by itself.
And replaced her head with Happy's.
Then Gajeel's.
Then Chase's.
The three transformations landed on the crowd in rapid succession like a very targeted attack. Happy, watching from near the front, found this so funny he had to physically grab the table to stop himself from sliding off his chair. Chase and Gajeel, who had not been consulted on this creative use of their faces, both experienced something in their chests that felt very much like internal bleeding.
Erza came out right after, having committed fully to a Gothic Lolita look, and executed it with exactly the level of total dedication she brought to everything in her life. The audience recovered from the Mira situation at impressive speed. Several perverts in the front rows appeared to have transcended their physical forms.
Levy and Bisca followed. Neither of them went with a swimsuit, which in the context of what had come before read as genuinely tasteful, but in a competition where the crowd had already been primed the way this crowd had been primed, "tasteful" was not the strongest play.
Max's already elevated energy went up another clear notch.
"Our next contestant! While she is not technically an official member of Fairy Tail, she is so close to being one that nobody is counting the difference. She is the magical genius who is somehow cute and sexy at the same time and makes it look completely effortless Dark Magician Girl!!"
The response from the audience was the loudest the hall had produced all morning. A roaring wall of sound that started at the front and pushed all the way to the back walls. Many of these men had specifically traveled here for this exact moment. With Mira having redirected her own momentum into a series of bizarre face swaps, every bit of that pent-up expectation had transferred directly onto Dark Magician Girl.
Whoosh!
A streak of pink light exploded out from behind the curtain. Dark Magician Girl, pink robe flowing, seated on her magic staff, shot up into the air and arced in a wide loop around the entire venue giving absolutely everyone in the hall a clear, unobstructed view from every angle before dropping back to the stage in a perfect landing and hitting her signature pose. Both fingers up, peace sign, beaming smile aimed at the entire room at once.
"Hello everyone, I am—"
"Contestant number nine."
A different voice cut in from the side of the stage. Low, unhurried, carrying the specific weight of someone who had decided in advance that the room belonged to them.
Evergreen walked onto the stage.
Green tunic. A Fairy Tail ribbon trailing elegantly down her back. A folding fan held loosely in one hand. She moved at her own pace to the center of the stage, stopped, and swept the audience with a gaze that could only be described as a queen surveying territory she had already claimed.
"The word 'Fairy.'" She let it sit for a moment. "The word 'beauty.' Both of these adjectives belong exclusively to one person."
She opened the fan with a clean, practiced flick.
"That person is standing right in front of you. Which means the winner of this contest has already been decided."
Her gaze moved slowly across every other contestant on the stage with the complete serenity of someone who had already done the math and found zero variables worth discussing.
"So. This tedious little contest ends here."
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